Police errors led to Lesley’s death

Watching The Heiress And The Kidnapper in the Real Crime series on Meridian (Mondays) it soon became apparent we were recounting a major investigation that turned out to be one of the most incompetent in police history.

From the moment Lesley Whittle, heiress to a transport fortune, was kidnapped from her bed in January 1975, the man in charge, Detective Bob Booth, blundered from one crisis to another.

The press and media had been tipped off by a leak from day one, resulting in the unedifying spectacle of cameras, flashlights and TV crews descending on a phone box where Lesley’s brother Ronald was to make a contact with the kidnapper.

Every newspaper in the country arrived in the village where Lesley lived and as Ronald Whittle waited for the vital call from the kidnapper, the red phone box was surround by the bustling media.

What a disaster. The call never came.

The man in charge frustratingly admitted when he knew the story had burst into the media spotlight he should have ordered a news blackout. That would have meant the press would have held off.

This was fatal blunder number one and he was responsible.

A couple of weeks later West Midlands police asked Booth to inspect a car left after the shooting of a security guard in Dudley the day after Lesley went missing. It contained a cassette tape – and on the tape was the voice of Lesley.

The police had missed this priceless clue for over a week.

Also more evidence was found in the car – four envelopes containing information on the ransom trail. A nearby lamp post contained another Dynotape message.

Clues now began to build up. The bullet used to kill the security guard was traced to a gun belonging to a cold-blooded killer called The Black Panther – Donald Neilson.

Some seven weeks after a pre-arranged meeting had fallen through after another series of errors, Booth decided to search the park where it would have taken place, revealing a priceless haul of clues. Plastic tapes, a torch, a spanner, a sleeping bag and eventually, in one of the labyrinth of damp caves, Lesley Whittle’s body was found.

The biggest manhunt in British criminal history took place, but it wasn’t for another year that a man acting suspiciously outside a post office was stopped by two police officers. It was serial robber and murderer Donald Neilson.

But the man who made blunder after blunder had already been replaced on the case by Scotland Yard detectives.

In this programme Booth gave his thoughts and regrets.

After the case he was demoted from CID to become a uniformed beat officer and he has since retired.

Here was a man who had solved 70 murders during his long career.

Now he’s sad and lonely, but at least he’s honest about his role in the case.

He said: “I was in charge. I let Lesley down. It was all my fault.”

This was a poignant end to a story of police incompetence and failure.